Summer work for the Historic Timbers Project started off in historic Lewisburg, WV with the Greenbrier Historical Society (GHS).Our introduction to the folks at the GHS occurred a few years ago when Shawn presented the results of the dendroarchaeological dating of Cook’s Old Mill in Monroe County, WV.After Shawn’s presentation we spoke at length with Karen Fankhauser and Toni Ogden of GHS about The Barracks, a historic structure in Lewisburg which did not have a definitive construction date, but had been inferred using historical documentation.

The Barracks

Kristen and Shawn journeyed back to Lewisburg to scope out sampling potential in The Barracks and the North House Museum (also owned by the GHS). While battling angry spiders and skirting the mouse corpses (which we often do), our excitement exploded as we discovered the sheer number of viable sampling spots – that’s when we knew we had to do this project!Unfortunately for us The Barracks was scheduled for restoration so we had to wait patiently to begin. In the interim, Kristen wrote an awesome grant proposal for the West Virginia Humanities Council and it was accepted!This provided much needed funding for the Historic Timbers Project. That brings us to today: Renovations are complete.Our project was funded.Now the exciting and fun work begins.We are fortunate to be working closely with the knowledgeable, enthusiastic members of the GHS.For this segment of our summer field season, Karen Fankhauser and Nick LaCasse (the director of GHS) have provided endless help with logistics and planning.Margaret Hambrick has coordinated a tour of other historic log structures in Greenbrier County – and we’re riding RTVs! We are excited about our summer adventures in southeastern West Virginia.Come back and read about our experiences sampling Greenbrier Historical Society’s structures and how dendrochronologists spend their down-time in Lewisburg.

What is the project? This is an effort to provide greater significance to historic log structures in West Virginia by using tree rings to determine felling and inferred construction dates. For this project we will date the construction of 3 structures: The Barracks of Lewisburg, McCoy Fort of Williamsburg, and Old Kile Homestead of Upper Tract.

How? Our lab members often study climate and ecology using the annual growth rings of trees, but we can also use tree rings to date log structures. This type of research is called dendroarchaeology - basically tree rings used for archaeological purposes. For more information on the dendroarchaeology process, click here.

What's next? We are about to begin the first stage of our research - collecting cores from the structures. We welcome you to follow our progress here!